Carbon duels provide winners for home team

Carbon's Aaron Stefanoff (top) battles with a North Sanpete opponent on the mat during the Carbon Duels wrestling meet that was held this past weekend.

Carbon High wrestling coach Dave Smith would always like his team to win every tournament they go to, but sometimes experience, especially in the preseason is more important that being an outright winner. That's the way it was at the annual Carbon Duels that was held this past Friday and Saturday in the home confines of the Dinogym.

"We decided it would be good for all the kids to get the experience so we took two teams out of our squad with half of each team being varsity wrestlers and the other half junior varsity. We called them Carbon One and Carbon A."

Putting those kids in the two, somewhat less strong teams would seem to most people like asking for defeat, especially when five other teams were coming to town with their varsity squads to compete.

Surprisingly to some people, but apparently not to Smith, the Carbon One team tied for first place and Carbon A placed fourth.

These results were posted against teams from Emery, North Sanpete, Monticello, Woods Cross and Union High Schools.

"Because of the way the tournament was set up Carbon One was listed as a third place finisher, but they actually tied for first place in points," stated Smith.